Just Another Dose (And I'll Be On My Way Back Home)
by OpheliacAngel
Summary: Dean is in a world of hurt. Human!Cas. Future AU. Written for mishastarlight for Team Free Will Secret Santa on tumblr for their prompt of Junkie!Cas and drunk!Dean. Warnings inside. Dean and Castiel, no slash.


**Title: **Just Another Dose (And I'll Be On My Way Back Home)

**Author:** OpheliacAngel

**Characters: **Dean and Castiel

**Genre: **Family/Angst/Hurt/Comfort

**Rating:** Mature (Just for some language)

**Word Count: **2,995

**Warnings: **Drug Use, Alcoholism, Suicide Attempt

**Summary: **Dean is in a world of hurt. Human!Cas. Future AU.

**A/N: **This was written for mishastarlight for Team Free Will Secret Santa on tumblr. One of the prompts they requested was 'Junkie!Cas and drunk!Dean,' and a few of the things they asked for were: 'Gen, Fluff and Schmoop, Hurt/Comfort, Angsty and Sad.' Hope you enjoy.

* * *

There are days where Cas will look at him like he is seeing something he has never seen before. Almost like there is nothing surrounding him and nothing pushing against him, nothing trying to drag him down.

This is not one of those days.

Cas is laughing and taking a joint from some girl, he'll smoke anything these days, and he's laughing harder after he takes a hit, doubling over from it and something in Dean just twists and twists and won't stop. He turns away, popping the cap off another bottle and guzzling, drinking it all down as fast as he can like his very life depends on it, like it does anything more at all but just dull the pain only slightly.

He's not an alcoholic, and he wasn't drunk last night or the night before that.

Except he was, and if Cas looks at him it isn't with meaning, like he's both the first and last thing his deep blue eyes will ever take in, and it isn't with affection or acknowledgment or any of those things Dean thought he knew so well. Really, it's not even Cas' fault and it isn't even the drugs. Dean's just becoming more forgettable every day - every second; more of a person that'll remain hidden from view as if it's best, cause out in the open, no one notices him.

Cas brushes against him and it's like he feels nothing, neither of them feel anything.

Dean smiles at him and his smile cracks, and his body slips away, pulls further away from everything around him and Cas is there, Cas is always there but he can't see him, not even if he wanted to.

It's Dean's fault, Dean's fault for being this way, for letting himself get this way.

The bottle is empty, reaching for another takes no moment of pause.

The end is coming closer everyday.

* * *

Months have passed or years have passed, probably the latter.

The hallucinations started about two and a half months back, when Castiel would start hanging out at random peoples houses, staying there all night and not coming back until the next morning or mid-afternoon. He would either inform Dean not to wait up for him or tell him nothing at all. Whiskey and scotch and whatever the hell else was lying around would call to him then, like a best friend, a best friend Dean isn't sure - no - _knows_ he doesn't deserve.

He drinks so much that he doesn't even know if he gets drunk anymore, or just drifts around the room like a ghost, like a ghost who can't let go.

He remembers Cas' smile that took so long to show up after Sam left, how it was brief and dissolved after no more than a minute, a minute of probably imagining that Sam might still be there, or reliving that moment ages ago where Cas only knew Dean and not Sam, only felt a bond to Dean and not to Sam. Ever since then he's been losing himself in the human world, surrounding himself with people who only want to get high with him, who don't know him like Dean does.

Dean has never seen his wings but he can remember the feel of them. He can remember when Cas had something, _someone _to fight for, when he would throw Dean up against a wall the moment he had angered him beyond all understanding. He can remember Castiel's confusion and rage and genuine acknowledgment, but now all he does is laugh, that sharp, grating laugh that makes Dean feel like he isn't even there at all.

That makes him feel like he went with Sam. He should have gone with Sam.

They're supposed to be brothers, a family when Dean's own shatters like it always has, like it always will. But Cas has turned his back and his attention and his trust, he has slipped Dean a joint at times when he was feeling generous, and he would shove a full bottle into his chest when he wanted Dean to get lost and shut up. He would shove Dean to the side and ignore him for a fix, just a small taste of whatever was in the room and on his mind.

He found heroin and he became jittery and ecstatic about everything but Dean. He would slip in and out of consciousness, always with a lazy smile on his face like he was doing it specifically to hurt Dean. His fingers were always twitching, always rubbing his nose and his body seemed drawn to the filthy carpets of the world. The image is burned into his mind of the once angel's lean body hovering over a table, eyes bright and wide and pleading.

And Dean's too broken to be disgusted, sinking in enough self-loathing to think he's the one who needs to be put away.

Dean learns his lesson after a month and doesn't follow Cas anymore. He hangs around liquor stores, half expecting his brother to find him, sigh at him and then drag him the hell out of there and back to their motel. Cas stops answering his phone so Dean slams his own into the concrete and drinks more. He wants to drink more than Cas snorts, wants to be the bigger fuck up so Cas has a chance to break through, so Cas has a chance to be human for just a little while longer.

The euphoria is gone, and maybe it was never there in the first place. So he'll let himself fade, he'll let himself drown.

His time's up anyway.

_Sammy..._

* * *

Dean is drunk and Cas is annoyed, fumbling around in his pocket, no doubt for another little baggie. Dean shoves him against the wall and the bag falls out of his hand, and Dean laughs like it's the funniest thing he sees in years even though Cas' glare is murderous, and it isn't because Dean knew what he was getting at either.

"I knew I should've gone out tonight."

"So why didn't you?" Dean plops himself down in a chair, grinning up at Cas pleasantly then taking another swig from his bottle. Cas shakes his head before turning away, and this makes Dean get up on his feet again and lunge toward Cas. The angel turned human doesn't expect it, but he lets Dean have his way with him for a split second, grabbing him demandingly and Cas can feel the rage pouring off of him like rolling thunder.

In his mind's eye he can see himself giving in, yet he can also see another part of him shoving Dean away, like he's a plague that Castiel has to rid himself of. Castiel swallows hard, but his hands grip Dean's shirt still, a warning. He's not playing around with him tonight. "What the hell is your problem, Dean?"

"You're high," Dean seethes, mouth widening into a pained grimace, "you're already high."

"So?" Castiel smiles at him just as Dean sees his fingers reaching up towards his face, his nose. He draws away instinctively, he doesn't like it when Cas is like this. "I have to be with _you _around."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean demands, eyeing Cas warily, almost as if he's an angel again and he's not exactly sure what he'll do next.

"It means that I'm through."

There's a loud noise in his head, intent to drive him to the ground, hands pressed to his ears. He remembers Cas trying to talk to him back then, the glass raining down all around him and he'd give anything to relive that moment. He tells himself to close his eyes and he does, he can't see Castiel leave.

_You really fucked up this time, bro._

Dean looks up at Sammy from his position on the floor. He doesn't remember how he got here, doesn't remember when Cas suddenly wasn't in the room anymore. It hurts though, doesn't hurt because he can't remember half the things that happen to him, but only hurts because Sam and Cas are here in his life, just like it always should have been but rarely ever was. They're the two people that are always there yet always so far out of reach. The two people he can never have.

"I know, Sammy. I should've watched him, should've put my foot down."

_It's your fault, you're a fuck up, Dean. Why'd you think I left?_

For once, Dean's not denying it or fighting against it. For once, he'll be pushed around and he'll force himself to take it in, to just breathe it in like a sharp, cold morning that burns his lungs and brightens him up for a brief moment until he just crashes down hard again. He's no good here, he doesn't even know what he's doing here. He's lived long enough, long enough to fuck everyone's lives up.

What he let Cas get into... he can't ever forgive himself for that.

There's the bag of heroin he found under the mattress and pills on the counter that he's been saving, and five seconds later there's a bottle in his hand. He closes the bathroom door and slips down heavily onto the cold tile flooring, his hands shaking so hard he can barely get the top off the pill bottle.

_Cas won't mind. _

"You're right, he won't."

He doesn't know how long it takes, snorting and swallowing, his nose and throat throbbing with tears and the continuous intake of substances, but eventually Dean sinks underneath the surface of everything he thought he could fix and prepares himself to drown.

Finally, the relief comes and he sleeps.

* * *

He honestly doesn't know what brings him back, but most likely it's Dean. Who Dean is, his unwavering though earth-shattering humanity, how bright his soul is and the sensation of it burning Castiel if he's not careful. For so much time he's been smiling for all of the wrong reasons, not towards Dean. Cas just never thought there would be a time where he would find the bedroom empty and Dean collapsed on the floor in the bathroom.

It'd be an understatement to say that his entire world is crashing down around him.

"Dean!"

He's not sober enough, not nearly sober enough to know what to do, to be able to think. If he was still an angel, still _useful_, then he could fix this and he could help Dean. But instead he can't do anything but stupidly sit here and hold him, he can't do anything but go through his entire list of regrets, all of them centering around Dean.

He can't do anything but want another fix so badly, want to grab that baggie that's under the mattress and just snort it all cause he can't deal with this. But he hasn't been there for Dean in a long while, and maybe it's because he's been so scared of being human, of messing everything up. He told Dean that he was through and he can't take that back, can't take Dean's actions back, but he can make up for it in his own way.

"I'm so sorry, Dean. I didn't realize..."

In a moment of clarity he fumbles in Dean's pocket for his phone, shakily presses the three buttons and tells both himself and Dean to hold on. He pulls the unconscious Dean off the tile and onto his lap, brushing back his hair and taking note of how pale and clammy his skin is. His breathing has slowed considerably, and it's making Castiel panic.

He'll fix this, he will.

* * *

Someone's rubbing circles into his back when he wakes up, their fingers finding purchase in his sore, ultra sensitive skin. The circles are small and meticulous, made with steady, purposeful hands, hands he hasn't felt in so long. He drifts for no more than a minute, then comes back to awareness with a terrible taste in his mouth and a headache that gnaws and gnaws at him. He's warm though, and he feels amazingly good, like last night was the first true sleep he's had in months, maybe even years. The person now digging their fingers into his back, loosening the bunched up muscles there, starts humming slightly and then sings under their breath, some language Dean can't understand.

His face is pressed up against a pillow and his voice comes out as a mumble, "Cas?"

"I dumped all your booze." His voice is rough and grating, exactly like Dean knows it to be, exactly how it was when they first met. There's a seriousness in it though, something Dean hasn't seen in Cas in years, not since he became human and discovered the supposedly glamorous world of heroin.

'_And I snorted all your shit, lot of good that did me.'_

The walls are stark white, along with pretty much everything else in the room. "Hospital?" He murmurs, because his throat aches and his head is fuzzy and Castiel is sitting in a cheap plastic chair, one that makes this terrible cracking noise whenever he moves to position himself above Dean.

"Yes. You were in a coma for a day or so, but they were pretty confident that you would come out of it." Dean pales at that, ashamed he had to put Cas through his bullshit.

"I'm sor..."

"Save it," he demands. "You almost died, Dean. You passed out in the bathroom and if I hadn't come back..."

"Yeah yeah," he brushes him off, sitting up to escape the freaking uncomfortable situation this has become rather than Cas' incredibly warm fingers that pull him back together nearly effortlessly. "I would've died, you would've just gone back to your drugs and we would both have been better off."

"You don't believe that," Cas states assuredly, and Dean finally sees this for what it is. Cas isn't high, he isn't even the slightest bit high; no, he's stone cold sober and Dean is sitting here like an idiot, like an idiot that just tried to kill himself. He isn't sure what's worse, a high Cas or a Cas that finally sees him for what he is: a failure and a fuck-up. "We're not lost."

"We are lost, Cas!" He shouts because he has to make this known someway, somehow. It's never been the right time, and that's what drove him to try to get out of this mess, but Cas is sober now and every word Dean could say will _hurt_. Even if Cas loses himself in drugs later, it'll still hurt. "Ever since you ditched me for that shit. Ever since I started drinking, thinking it would help, thinking it would bring you back."

"I know you did it on purpose, I know it's been...," he pauses, as if searching for the right word, as if none of them are good enough, "hard."

Dean snorts at that, "Hard? Now that's a fucking understatement." There's a startling silence, one that Dean expected Cas to fill like he usually does. Like he _always _does. "You know what? Just fuck off, you didn't need to save me. Hell, I would have been better off without your help."

"What I need and what you think I need are completely different things," Castiel stresses, arms holding Dean's shoulders gently though with a force that screams desperation. "I need you, Dean. Most of the time I'm just too high to say it, but without you there is no point, no _meaning_."

Dean wants to shoot something at him back, something like that he doesn't need Cas, can't find any goddamn meaning with Cas, but he knows that's not true and he doesn't dare say it. No matter how many times Cas has let him down, that Cas has chosen drugs over him and what he needs, he's still Cas. And that's damn well good enough for him.

"Why'd you come back anyway?"

It isn't like he expected Cas to give him anything. Hell, he's surprised he's even getting this.

His hands are on his arms again, as if his fingers can rub the warmth right back into them, as if they can put him back together again. "I love you, Dean. You're my family, you know that."

Dean nods, but Cas' fingers dig deeper until he speaks. "I know. I just can't feel it anymore, Cas. I'm sorry." There's a long pause that feels uncomfortable for the most part, especially when Cas' face unexpectedly softens and his eyes start to tear up. Or Dean could just be imagining that.

"Don't apologize, Dean." Cas brushes back his overgrown hair and pushes Dean towards the bed, not satisfied until his hands lie Dean back against the mountain of pillows set up for him. "I'm the instigator." He turns around and out of nowhere, both his hands are suddenly cupping a bowl of soup, which he hands to him along with a spoon. Dean sits up further and takes it, taking a cautious and surprisingly pretty good spoonful. He lets the tomato soup coat his mouth before swallowing. "I drove you to this, even if you don't want to say it."

Castiel's dry lips are on his forehead then, and both his hands entwine with Dean's own. "We'll get away, soon as you say." His breath reeks of coffee and breath mints, but Dean relaxes into it and breathes it in as Cas and nothing less than his once angel. He wraps himself around him and Cas follows suit, his arms skinny but strong and supportive.

He's trembling a little, as if to warn him it's time for another fix, but Dean ignores it and Castiel only sinks deeper into him, denying it entirely.

"Thanks, Cas."

Cas is looking at him with nothing but awe, sober and wide-eyed and like he has never seen Dean before. Whatever they have to face, they'll face it together, Dean knows that now.

Best friends to the end.

**FIN**


End file.
